A Man's Guide to PrayerSample

Living Out a Commitment to Prayer - Prayer as a Powerful Use of Time

Why is it so hard to accept that prayer is the most powerful investment of time? The answer is simple—when we work, we earn a specific reward. The equation goes like this: effort + work = reaching my goal

Here’s the problem: on the surface, human effort seems more powerful than prayer. That’s because when we work, we see a result. But when we pray, sometimes we don’t. That can lead to thinking work is more powerful than prayer, but the opposite is true.

Summers are financial agony for anyone in ministry because contributions naturally fall off. One summer at Man in the Mirror, finances were “don’t-know-how-we’re-going-to-make-payroll” tight. I started praying and I ran across two key Scripture passages:

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

[Jesus said,] “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” (Matthew 6:31–32)

The Matthew passage concludes by exhorting us to seek God’s kingdom first and quit worrying. That’s hard to do. At that point, the ministry had thirty staff members. They had mortgages or rent, and car payments. They bought groceries and paid for childcare, gasoline, and doctor's bills. Those staff members depended on their salaries. I wrote in my journal, “God, I feel like You have failed me. I don’t believe that You failed me, but that is how I feel.”

You might have already guessed that God did meet that need, and He’s met every other need. But we all have moments when life just doesn’t work the way we expect it to. That’s why it’s important to understand the power of prayer.

Here’s the bottom line: prayer is much more powerful than labor, so God has put some limits on it. If He hadn’t done that, we’d all destroy ourselves by asking for (and receiving) the wrong things.

Do you trust God enough to understand that He already knows everything you need? That’s what the Scriptures say. He will give you everything you need out of His glorious riches. And He will answer every prayer that you go into His study to explore with Him—sometimes He says yes, sometimes no.

In those moments we must keep the faith that prayer is the most powerful and efficient use of time.

A young businessman told me, “You know, I really don’t have a lot of time for prayer and Bible reading. I have young kids, I’m building my career, and I’m very active in my church.”

When I was in that same mindset, I took a suggestion from management guru Peter Drucker and charted how I actually spent my time. Drucker says everyone has expectations about what their chart will say, and everyone is surprised by what they actually find.

I discovered I spent up to two hours every night watching TV. I started going to bed early instead and rising two hours earlier in the morning. People sometimes think I’m crazy to get up at 4 a.m., but that’s okay. God thinks it’s cool that I want to spend that time with Him.

If you really want to spend time with God, you’ll find a way. If you want a close relationship with Jesus, you can have it, and the way to cultivate that relationship is through conversation. Sometimes that means sacrificing something else to create time and space for a new priority.